Lost Records: Bloom and Rage – Tape 2 review:

With the story complete, Lost Records: Bloom & Rage is dazzling. Teen rage, girl power, sapphic love – it’s all explored with care and consideration. It’s rough around the edges in parts, but Don’t Nod has created a wonderful supernatural coming-of-age story that ends with teen defiance and queer rage.
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The last we saw of our teenage girl gang (in our Lost Records Bloom & Rage – Tape 1 review), things had taken a turn for the worse. After putting on a punk concert in the local dive bar’s car park – an outpouring of unashamed anger and teen angst met with disgruntled bar patrons – one of the girls, Kat, coughs up blood and gets rushed to the hospital. Swann, Autumn, and Nora are left in the empty lot, shaken by the discovery of what their friend has been hiding from them. Just a moment ago the four had been unstoppable, but this revelation changes everything.
Just like Life is Strange, the series that put Don’t Nod on the map, Lost Records is split into episodes, and Tape 2 is the fallout of the first tape’s crescendo. As each tape’s title suggests, Tape 1 was the Bloom of a newfound friendship, and Tape 2 brings the Rage. It’s a little rough around the edges, but the conclusion of Lost Records is everything I wanted it to be: full of heartbreak, gay kissing, dreamy pop ballads, and supernatural scares. As a finale to Don’t Nod’s new teen drama series, it’s magnificent. Break out the waterproof mascara for this one, girlies.
(Image credit: Don’t Nod)
Fast Facts Release date: April 15, 2025
Platform(s): PC, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5
Developer: In-house
Publisher: Don’t Nod
Tape 2 follows the same structure as Tape 1. We see Swann and friends as teens during the 90s and also as adults in the present reminiscing on the summer they all met. This reunion 27 years later has been prompted by a mysterious package addressed to them all, its contents threatening to dredge up a past they would rather forget. There’s a palpable tension between the women as the mystery of why they promised as teens to never meet again after that fateful summer slowly comes into focus.
The past has its invisible tendrils curled around them, and this meeting – which in the first episode signified a step towards healing – might actually be the opposite. In Tape 1, we saw these snippets of the present as an ominous sign of what’s to come, but now we see a group of women who all have their own – often conflicting – ways of dealing with their shared traumatic past.
It’s excellent drama, and is just the first of many incredible ways Lost Records depicts the friendship dynamics of women, especially teen girls. Tape 1 was filled with the girls goofing around, angsty band practice, and dreamy sunsets. This tape is different. We see the gang get angry, rebellious, and even violent. The ominous pit the girls find in the woods has them firmly in its grip, and its power is beginning to seep into their lives. Lost Records understands that teen rage, especially from a group of girls fueled by a supernatural force, is fierce, and beautiful.
Grrrl Power
(Image credit: Don’t Nod)